The Season to be Thankful

Our house has been very full lately.  After Emily left, we had about a week with just us and Aimie (our friend from France).  Then, we got a group and a new roommate all in one day.  The group has since left, but Kirsten will probably be staying until April.  However, she is young and it is her first time away from home.  As a result, she is considering leaving earlier.  Please keep Kirsten and her family in your prayers.

We have had quite a few children leave the orphanage.  There have been three adoptions and three children going home to extended families.  Dieudonne’s adoption was a historic one for the orphanage.  He was the first child to be adopted from this orphanage by a resident of Burkina Faso.  He will be living in the capital with his new family.  The other two adoptions were actually a set of sisters.  A German couple spent about half a week here before they took Rita and Christianne yesterday.  It was an amazing thing to see.  We got to experience their first sight of the girls this week and see the way that they have bonded as a family through their time.  Rita, who is older, was even learning some simple German before they left.  The parents were so happy that when they left the orphanage yesterday, that they both were crying. 

We have three new babies and a child at the orphanage as well.  Orikea is about 2 years old.  Her mother and father recently died and she went to live with aunt.  This aunt had two infants of her own and was unable to take care of a third.  Her aunt brought her to the orphanage in tears hoping that we would be able to take this little girl.  Omarou is about 3 weeks old.  He is the result of a mentally unwell woman being taken advantage of by a man.  She is unable to take care of the Omarou so he will be staying at the orphanage.  Omalie is only a few days old.  Her mother gave birth to her in a bus and left her there without telling anyone.   Social Action was informed and brought her to us.  She had multiple bruises on her body so she went to the pediatric hospital yesterday for a complete checkup.  God’s grace was shining on her, because everything seems to be fine.  Finally, Wenddinda was found by Social Action to be abused by her family. She was forced to drink poison, which fused her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Before coming to the orphanage, she needed to have a surgery in the capital to fix her mouth.

With these newborns come new responsibilities.  Because they are too young to be safe with the older children, we have taken over much of their care.  We take care of them during the nights (we call this practice for the future) and during the days when we are available. 

Lauren is pleased to report that she had been given the teaching of the 10^th graders.  While the pastor still translates for her, she has taken over the lesson planning, the teaching, and even the testing.  She is currently teaching on the life of David and will continue with that until Christmas break.  One of Lauren’s overabundant projects was to take pictures of all the kids that live at the orphanage.  She wanted to get two of each child.  She is in the process of sending them to her mother so that she (Deb) can get them printed and send them when Doug and Matthew (Lauren’s dad and brother) come in January.  An offshoot of that resulted in a PowerPoint which Lauren made and sent to our church  with pictures of all the kids so that they can be prayed for by our church family back home.

Bekah continues teaching the preschool children.  She continues in the struggle to teach them their colors and numbers.  They have the hardest time with memorization, but they can remember every story that they have been told.  Once a week, the lesson is on a bible story.  They can now tell the stories of David and Goliath, Isaac and Rebekah (that was an awkward lesson), Noah, and Jonah.  Because the stories are repeated a few weeks in a row, they begin to memorize the facts.  It is so cool to hear them ask about Goliath when they pick up a stone on their weekly walks.  Bekah also continues to work with Haruna.  He is a 2-year-old who is deaf and blind.  She feeds him every day and works to give him some stimulation in his life.  He really enjoys listening to music on Bekah’s speakers.  He likes Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, and Beethoven.  He also likes Christmas music. 

For Thanksgiving, Lauren had to work so Bekah mad e the some of the dinner and ate with every other American in the town (and our French friend, Aimie, and our German friend, Annalie).  We were able to have a good time of fellowship and fun together.  After dinner, we played Apples to Apples and kicked off the Christmas season by watching a Christmas movie together.

Our menu consisted of:

·         Two Turkeys

·         Mashed Potatoes

·         Gravy

·         Green Beans

·         Spinach and Artichoke Dip

·         Pumpkin Bread

·         Bread Stuffing

·         Rice Stuffing

·         Dinner Rolls

·         Cranberry Sauce

·         Apple Pie

·         Pumpkin Pie

·         Chocolate Chip Cookies

·         Cinnamon ICE CREAM!!!

We did not feel like standing in line for Black Friday Shopping, so Lauren and Bekah sent the two newest members of the household to do their shopping.  They came back with five baguettes.  They said they got a great deal.

The Princes and the Paupers

The past few weeks have been filled with our usual daily activities, as well as some new adventures. Lauren continues to go to the secondary school, and has had more opportunities to teach as of late. She is teaching a series on Jonah with the tenth graders, and so far it has been going well. Bekah is still helping with the preschool, and is finally learning some of children’s songs (in Morre and in French). She also learned a new game, Renard passé-passe, which is similar to Duck Duck Goose. She continues in the ever present struggle to teach the toddlers their colors.

Two weeks ago, we had the opportunity to visit the home of one of the boys that lives in the orphanage, Barto. We helped his family begin their harvest of millet, which is a grain. We met his father, sister, and nephew, and enjoyed seeing where he lives, when not at the orphanage. Barto lives at the orphanage because there is no secondary school where he lives, and he wanted to continue his education in order to go to medical school.

Last week, there was a celebration for the new directors of the orphanage. Mike and Amy Riddering have been learning from Ruth Cox for about a year how to run the orphanage, and have now officially taken over. Ruth is moving to the south of the country to begin a new orphanage. Even though we couldn’t understand what was happening at the actual ceremony, the party atmosphere before and the party afterwards were really fun. Everyone looked very nice and was in good spirits. We had chicken and salad (and sodas!), with a very good local dressing. While we dined, we were at the same table with two kings. Then the kids and Bekah watched a movie, The Amazing Spiderman, outside on the projector.

We had to say goodbye to one of our roommates, Emily, on Tuesday. We went to Ouaga on Monday      with Mike and Amy to drop off their friend, Pat, who returned to Florida on Monday night. At that time, we left Emily in Ouaga with her missions organization, so that she can touch base with them before she left for Colorado on Friday. While in Ouaga, we also got hamburgers, French fries, and ICE CREAM J